Underthesun
- 607
- 143
Hey all you fellow organic gardeners. I was skeptical about starting a new thread, but couldn't really find all the info I was looking for using the search button. I'm semi new to organic gardening and attempting to take things a step further. This year will be my first grow using all my own compost and vermicompost and I have mixed up a living soil recipe from Build-a-soil's website that gives credit to Clackamas Coots. Either way, I have heard good things about this mix from the farm here, read some of Coot's blogs and have a few questions I was hoping someone with a little more experience can help me out with or point me to some info that I haven't been able to find on my own. I'm an outdoor grower, fyi.
Mulching/Cover Cropping:
Yes I will need this, or at least mulching. But what do you all prefer and why? I have seen some of you like to just use compost/castings, others like wood chips and some like cover crops. When using cover crops do you plant in the fall, spring, whenever you want? Do you till in your crops at a certain time of year, just chop them down, let them grow all around your plants? I just have not seen any pictures of cannabis and cover crops...pics would be nice if anyone has any. Also, if using cover crops and you also want to mulch, do you just start dumping compost and/or whatever you use on top of the cover crops? That leads to another question, how do you top dress with cover crops? Maybe I just need a visual image here.
Livng soil:
I plan to use this soil year after year. I assume I'll plant some cover crops in the fall and then what is the standard practice, if there is one, when you plant your plants in the spring. How do you re-amend the soil without tilling up the cover crops...or do you till?
Vermicomposting:
I have been raising worms and harvesting vermicompost for about a year now. I want to expand and really get some high quality castings for next season, a year from now. I've just been using cardboard and and food, garden scraps. I'm sure this is excellent shiz, but maybe it could be even better. I read how Coots lets his worms eat up all his nutes, comfrey, barley straw and makes a killer compost after a year. I was thinking of doing this. Then I assume I could just top dress with this next season and have some really rad worm shiz. I was thinking of just using my cold compost as the bedding and then adding my nutes/minerals to that instead of using barley and comfrey. Any thought or advice on my vermicompost idea?
Well there are a lot of different techniques and styles for living soil, so everyone will have a different opinion. You will have to figure our what works best for you and your garden.
For mulches I prefer a coarse compost, preferably what is often referred to as a 'vineyard much' if I can find it. I like this type of mulch because it breaks down into the soil over a few months. This does mean that you have to re apply towards the end of summer when using it outdoors though.
A lot of people like using straw as well. It is inexpensive and does a good job of holding the moisture in but it takes a long time to break down (which can be either a pro or a con depending on what you want). However, if you are growing outdoors it also makes a nice nesting environment for voles, mice and other rodents, which in turn can girdle your plants, killing them as well as chew up your drip system. I always have a seriously high rodent population so I cannot use straw for my gardens - I've ended up with dead plants every time I've tried it. This is also why I don't use a living mulch - it makes it too easy for rodents to nest and hide in the garden. If you do not have rodent issues than living mulches can be a great way to mulch your plants - I may try living mulches in my greenhouse once it is built as I can more easily keep rodents out of an enclosed structure.
Our cover crops get seeded mid Nov, as soon as the last outdoor plant are harvested. A layer of manure and compost gets tossed on top of them to act as a mulch. They grow till about April 1, then get chopped down, and another layer of compost is added on top. In a week or so here we will be adding our other dry amendments and forking the soil to mix it in. I have done straight no-till with some of my outdoor plants but I am still figuring out the best way to do that with incorporating the cover crops. I will probably try a few this year with the cover crop and no till, and the rest will get done with the standard system that has been used in the past where we just use a pitchfork to turn the soil over with the amendments.
For my light dep greenhouse we have switched entirely to no-till. The compost and dry amendments are layered on top of the pots and then I just sort of knead them into the top 6" or so of the soil with my hands. I did a bunch of strains side by side in my light dep last year with half being tilled and half being no-till. On average the no till plants grew slightly faster, yielded about 25% more, and it took a fraction of the time to amend the pots.
To top dress with cover crops or with no till you just scratch the dry amendments into the surface and then water them in heavily. The water and soil critters will do the rest for you. Most of the feeder roots for cannabis are in the top few inches of soil, and that is where the vast majority of chemical and biological activity occurs as well. You don't need to have your amendments distributed deep down into your soil - in fact in my opinion, it's a waste.
If you take a look at some of my threads you can see cover crops and no till plants in action. Hope that helps.
I think I'll hold off until after harvest to cover crop, since that is what I have mostly read and that sounds like your method as well. Plus, no rodent problem while growing. I like the idea of no-till, using cover crops in the off season. Chop em down in the spring, compost the top, then amend a few weeks before planting (my compost I think will have all my amendments already in it). Sounds like a plan! Man, that sounds so easy...been making soil for the last few years and sick of it.
I have taken *all* my organic gardening learning over to and from the market gardening sector. Eliot Coleman and the like. So for CC's along with cannabis I have some specific requirements--fast germinating, low-growing, low water demanding. I have found, for example, that clovers in a topsoil really need a good bit more water than something like fenugreek, which is still one of my alltime favorites for cover cropping. I will also use rye grass, and anything else that can also EASILY be chopped and dropped. That's how I do CC's, chop & drop. Mine have been going a few years now so they reseed themselves annually, sometimes biannually.Mulching/Cover Cropping:
Yes I will need this, or at least mulching. But what do you all prefer and why? I have seen some of you like to just use compost/castings, others like wood chips and some like cover crops. When using cover crops do you plant in the fall, spring, whenever you want? Do you till in your crops at a certain time of year, just chop them down, let them grow all around your plants? I just have not seen any pictures of cannabis and cover crops...pics would be nice if anyone has any. Also, if using cover crops and you also want to mulch, do you just start dumping compost and/or whatever you use on top of the cover crops? That leads to another question, how do you top dress with cover crops? Maybe I just need a visual image here.
Bioactive soil will continue to be alive as long as there's something living on it. I chop & drop usually, BUT there's nothing wrong with doing some judicious tilling. If I wish to till, or if I feel amendments are needed (and I do prefer to till those in) then that's what I do. If I have to till, then I reseed the cover crops. I haven't done any tilling since '11 when I did my knee though, and the soil is nicely friable and easily planted. I'm gonna miss my beds.Livng soil:
I plan to use this soil year after year. I assume I'll plant some cover crops in the fall and then what is the standard practice, if there is one, when you plant your plants in the spring. How do you re-amend the soil without tilling up the cover crops...or do you till?
Anything woody is going to sequester N for a while. I personally would recommend allowing them to more fully decompose, to release that N and C storage. There won't be much in the way of sugars in any event via woody stocks.I'm thinking of chipping up some Apple and Fig limbs/sticks and covering in EWC for a week or two and try mulching with it during flowering.
Seeing if the sugers from them do anything to the micro life..
Always like organic info.
STR8
Vermicomposting:
I have been raising worms and harvesting vermicompost for about a year now. I want to expand and really get some high quality castings for next season, a year from now. I've just been using cardboard and and food, garden scraps. I'm sure this is excellent shiz, but maybe it could be even better. I read how Coots lets his worms eat up all his nutes, comfrey, barley straw and makes a killer compost after a year. I was thinking of doing this. Then I assume I could just top dress with this next season and have some really rad worm shiz. I was thinking of just using my cold compost as the bedding and then adding my nutes/minerals to that instead of using barley and comfrey. Any thought or advice on my vermicompost idea?
Won't really hurt, just be cognizant that woody parts tend to sequester N while the microbes do the dirty-dirty. If you're talking about using the actual fruits, then you're going to be getting a whole suite of secondary plant metabolites, sugars, P, K... probably little N relative to the vitamins and minerals I think.@Seamaiden I was just wondering since the trees are in fruit mode. I figured the stems would be pushing sugars to the fruits.
I wasn't really thinking of it still being green . I guess I will need to let it dry out.
I have some from a couple yrs ago in a bucket,I might try it.
There should be some sugars seeing that's kind of the reason you smoke (cook ) with it. I think?
Just my thoughts though.
It couldn't hurt,could It ?
STR8
I'm dying to start my own worm bins,I've been getting 40 litre sacks of quality casts for ;£40..so its just me being idle I suppose.hehe.what worms do you all recommend,for small scale,novice worm bin...?I'm still learning on the worm stuff,so I appreciate that @LittleDabbie .
STR8
I bet that worm juice is excellent.amazing price.I'd buy a job lot of empty litre bottle and make a fortune on ebay.I've seen similar,well labeled stuff fetching £15 .im interested to hear how you separate your castings too.cheers.I found a local red Wigglers farmer close by,and I get his Rain water EWC tea for free. About 30 gal or so.
But his EWC is $15 a 50 lb bag and $20 for 1lb of worms.
So I bought a lb of worms last time and will be trying to do a little farming myself.
@LittleDabbie how do You separate your castings?
STR8
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?